So over the course of four years, some guy by the name of Paul Johnson has put together an unbelievable short film about an Imperial assault on a small rebel fleet. The entire seven and a half minute film is done in the style of classic 80s anime such as Zeta Gundam or Macross, with all the high-G turns and missile trails that entails. There’s a bit of 3D animation in there, as well as some obvious roto-scoping, and a heavily 80s influenced relentless guitar riff during combat. However, the most surprising thing, especially for LucasArts fans of the day, are all the callbacks to the legendary TIE Fighter space simulation combat game put out by the company back when they still had a respectable legacy.
Everything from the front/rear shield configuration to in-game missile notifications are lovingly lifted from the original game, and it’s all combined with that obsessive, otaku attention to detail in combat that ignore actual physics in exchange for incredibly cool. If you ever wanted to see how an 80s anime studio would handle a Star Wars space battle, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
